Caroline C. Wang

Photovoice: Concept, Methodology, and Use for Participatory Needs Assessment

Photovoice is a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique. As a practice based in the production of knowledge, photovoice has three main goals: (1) to enable people to record and reflect their communitys strengths and concerns, (2) to promote critical dialogue and knowledge about important issues through large and small group discussion of photographs, and (3) to reach policymakers. Applying photovoice to public health promotion, the authors describe the methodology and analyze its value for participatory needs assessment. They discuss the development of the photovoice concept, advantages and disadvantages, key elements, participatory analysis, materials and resources, and implications for practice.

Photovoice Ethics: Perspectives from Flint Photovoice

Photovoice is a participatory health promotion strategy in which people use cameras to document their health and work realities. As participants engage in a group process of critical reflection, they may advocate for change in their communities by using the power of their images and stories to communicate with policy makers. In public health initiatives from China to California, community people have used photovoice to carry out participatory needs assessment, conduct participatory evaluation, and reach policy makers to improve community health. This article begins to address ethical issues raised by the use of photovoice: the potential for invasion of privacy and how that may be prevented; issues in recruitment, representation, participation, and advocacy; and specific methodological techniques that should be used to minimize participants’ risks and to maximize benefits. The authors describe lessons learned from the large-scale Flint Photovoice involving youth, adults, and policy makers.

Chinese village women as visual anthropologists: A participatory approach to reaching policymakers

In developing countries, rural women are often neither seen nor heard, despite their extraordinary contribution to the labor force. Photo novella is an innovative methodology that puts cameras in the hands of rural women and other constituents who seldom have access to those who make decisions over their lives. As an educational tool, the practice of photo novella has three main goals: (1) to empower rural women to record and reflect their lives, especially health needs, from their own point of view; (2) to increase their collective knowledge about womens health status; and (3) to inform policymakers and the broader society about health and community issues that are of greatest concern to rural women. In this paper we analyze the third goal: the contributions and limitations of photo novella as a tool for informing policymakers. We conceptualize first the theoretical and practical underpinnings of photo novella. After tracing the relationships among empowerment education, feminist theory, documentary photography and policy, we describe photo novella within the broader context of the Ford Foundation-supported Yunnan Womens Health and Development Program and explain its application for influencing policy based on our experience carrying out photo novella in China.

Who Knows the Streets as Well as the Homeless? Promoting Personal and Community Action through Photovoice

Photovoice is a process by which people can identify, represent, and enhance their community through a specific photographic technique. The purpose of the Language of Light Photovoice project was to enable men and women living at a shelter in Ann Arbor, Michigan to photograph their everyday health, work, and life conditions as a way to document their struggles and strengths; to promote critical dialogue through group discussion about their photographs; and to reach policy makers and the broader public about issues of concern to homeless people. The authors’ approach used photovoice, an innovative participatory action research method based on health promotion principles and the theoretical literature on education for critical consciousness, feminist theory, and a community-based approach to documentary photography. Photovoice involves community members’ taking pictures, telling stories, and informing policy makers about issues of concern at the grassroots level. The authors describe and analyze the project, offer recommendations to health promotion practitioners carrying out photovoice projects with society’s most vulnerable groups, and discuss implications for practice.

Engaging Young Adolescents in Social Action Through Photovoice: The Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES!) Project

The Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES!) project is an afterschool empowerment program and research project for underserved early adolescents. Central to YES! is an empowerment intervention that provides early adolescents with opportunities for civic engagement with other youth around issues of shared concern in their schools and neighborhoods. This article specifically focuses on the use of Photovoice as a promising way to engage youth in social change as they take photos capturing strengths and issues in their environment and use these as the basis of critical dialogue and collective action plans. Adding to a growing body of information on using Photovoice, this article reports how early adolescents in the YES! afterschool program experienced the Photovoice process, moving from photography and writing to initiate group-designed social action projects. Recommendations are offered for others engaged in empowerment work with early adolescents.

Linking African American Mothers Across Life Stage and Station Through Photovoice

Homeless young African American women and low-income, elderly African American women have housing needs specific to their age cohorts, yet they also have parallel and complementary housing, health, and personal needs. The young struggle to afford decent housing, while the old may have difficulty maintaining their homes. In this pilot study, intergenerational contact was established between young homeless women and elderly independently housed women through photovoice. Over six months, five African American women discussed photographs they had taken that focused on their current living arrangements and activities. Although the women spanned three generations, had different life experiences, and resided in a variety of home settings, the sharing of photographs revealed many commonalities. In the process of discussing photographs, fa women established mutual respect, exercised reciprocal affirmation, and built alliances. The preliminary study is preparatory to exploring the feasibility of establishing house-sharing arrangements for mutual assistance between these cohorts.

Breast Self-Examination Among Chinese Immigrant Women

The incidence of breast cancer is rising rapidly among the fast-growing demographic group of Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). In this study, the authors assessed the awareness of breast self-exam (BSE) and factors predicting practice of BSE among Chinese immigrant women living in San Francisco. Three hundred and ninety-seven women participated in a telephone survey; 80.9% reported having heard of BSE but only 53.9% reported practice of BSE during the past year. Logistic regression modeling found that increased length of stay in the United States, higher income, socializing with more Chinese than non-Chinese, and a birthplace other than U.S. and Chinese communities predicted BSE practice. The findings indicate that although familiarity with BSE is high among this group of Chinese immigrant women, self-reported actual practice is far from optimal. This study points to the need for culturally appropriate interventions that will encourage and motivate immigrant Chinese women to practice BSE on a monthly basis.

The Future of Health Promotion: Talkin™ Technology Blues:

Talking about the future often means talking about technology. Does the future of health promotion lie in technology? This article offers a user’s perspective on this issue. By returning to core values in which health education practice is rooted, it raises basic questions we ought to ask as we apply technology to meet the challenges we face.